Roughing System

ABSTRACT

A roughing system includes a roughing machine and an imaging apparatus. The roughing machine roughs an upper of a shoe along a path to form a rough trace thereon. The imaging apparatus includes a camera module and a processing module. The camera module is moved parallel to the path and repeatedly captures an image of a portion of the upper having a segment of the rough trace thereon each time when one of a first condition that the camera module has been moved by a predetermined length and a second condition that the camera module has been moved for a predetermined time duration is satisfied. The processing module receives the images respectively of different portions of the upper that are sequentially captured by the camera module, and is configured to generate a panoramic image based on the images.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to Taiwanese Patent Application No. 106141300 filed on Nov. 28, 2017.

FIELD

The disclosure relates to an imaging apparatus and a roughing system for generating a panoramic image of a rough trace on an upper of a shoe.

BACKGROUND

In the manufacturing procedure of shoes, in order to ensure durability of the shoes, it is necessary to secure an upper firmly to a sole. To do so, the upper is roughened to enhance mechanical bonding between the upper and the sole before the upper i s stuck to the sole using adhesive.

Referring to FIG. 1, a roughing machine 1 includes a grinding wheel 11 that is movable along a path around an upper 2 of a shoe and that roughs the upper 2 to form a rough trace 21 thereon. Generally, a depth and a width of the rough trace 21 significantly affect the strength of adhesion between the upper and the sole. Some shoes manufacturers may employ inspector personnel to inspect a roughened upper to determine whether a depth and a width of a rough trace formed on the upper are qualified. Some shoes manufacturers, for each upper, take successive pictures of the upper or film a video of the upper as a grinding wheel is roughing the upper, and have the pictures or the video displayed to an inspector who subsequently determines whether a depth and a width of a rough trace on the upper are qualified. However, the abovementioned inspections are both labor intensive and time consuming.

SUMMARY

Therefore, an object of the disclosure is to provide an imaging apparatus and a roughing system capable of alleviating at least the drawbacks mentioned above.

According to one aspect of the disclosure, a roughing system including a roughing machine and an imaging apparatus is provided. The roughing machine is configured to rough an upper of a shoe along a path so as to form a rough trace thereon. The imaging apparatus includes a camera module and a processing module. The camera module is configured to be moved parallel to the path and to repeatedly capture an image of a portion of the upper having a segment of the rough trace thereon each time when one of a first condition that the camera module has been moved by a predetermined length and a second condition that the camera module has been moved for a predetermined time duration is satisfied. The processing module electrically connected to the camera module for receiving the images respectively of different portions of the upper that are sequentially captured by the camera module, and is configured to generate a panorama based on the images.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Other features and advantages of the disclosure will become apparent in the following detailed description of the embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, of which:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a conventional roughing machine roughing an upper of a shoe;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a roughing system according to one embodiment of this disclosure;

FIG. 3 is a schematic view illustrating a path along which a roughing machine of the roughing system is to be moved along;

FIG. 4 illustrates an image of a portion of an upper captured by the roughing system and an image portion extracted from the image;

FIG. 5 is a panoramic image generated by the roughing system according to one embodiment of this disclosure; and

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a roughing system according to another embodiment of this disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Referring to FIGS. 2 and 3, a roughing system 100 according to one embodiment of the disclosure is provided to include a roughing machine 4, and an imaging apparatus that includes a camera module 5, a processing module 6 and a display unit 7. The roughing machine 4 is configured to rough an upper 3 of a shoe along a path (L) so as to form a rough trace 31 on the upper 3. The roughing machine 4 includes a robotic arm 42, a grinding wheel 41 and a motor 43. The grinding wheel 41 is co-movably mounted on the robotic arm 42 so that the robotic arm 42 brings the grinding wheel 41 to move along the path (L). The motor 43 is mounted on the robotic arm 42 for driving the grinding wheel 41 to rotate for roughing the upper 3 to form the rough trace 31).

The imaging apparatus for generating a panoramic image of the rough trace 31 on the upper 3. The camera module 5 includes a supporting frame 51 and a camera 52. In one embodiment, the supporting frame 51 is mounted co-movably on one end of the robotic arm 42 where the grinding wheel 41 is mounted. The camera 52 is for capturing an image of a portion of the upper 3 having a segment of the rough trace 31 thereon, and is co-movably mounted on the supporting frame 51 to be moved parallel to the path (L) as the roughing machine 4 roughs the upper 3 along the path (L). Specifically, the camera 52 captures an image of a portion of the upper 3, e.g., the left image 8 in FIG. 4, each time when a first condition that the camera 52 has been moved by a predetermined length is satisfied or a second condition that the camera 52 has been moved for a predetermined time duration is satisfied. In one embodiment, the camera 52 captures an image of a portion of the upper 3 each time when the camera 52 has been moved by 2.8 centimeters (cm). In one embodiment, the camera 52 captures an image of a portion of the upper 3 every ten seconds.

The processing module 6 is electrically connected to the camera 52 for receiving the images respectively of different portions of the upper 3 that are sequentially captured by the camera 52 and is configured to perform image processing on the images. The camera 52 may transmit to the processing module 6 each image upon capturing the same, or transmit the images all at once after having captured the images for the entire rough trace 31. In this embodiment, the processing module 6 is configured to extract an image portion from each image by performing, e.g., edge detection and background subtraction on the image. As shown in FIG. 4, the left image 8 is an example image captured by the camera 52 and has a portion of the upper 3 having a segment 310 of the rough trace 31 thereon. The processing module 6 performs the above-mentioned image processing on the image 8 (the left image in FIG. 4) to obtain an image portion 81 (the right image in FIG. 4) that includes the segment 310 of the rough trace 31 which transversely extends across the image 8. In this embodiment, the processing module 6 is programmed to define the image portion 81 as a portion of the image 8 that has the segment 310 as a centerline of the image portion 81 and top and bottom edges spaced apart from the segment 310 by a predetermined distance.

The processing module 6 is further configured to combine the image portions respectively extracted from the images by sequentially stitching the image portions of the images in an order of the images being captured by the camera 52, so as to generate a panoramic image 9 shown in FIG. 5. It should be noted that edge detection and background subtraction on each image to extract the image portion of the image are commonly used techniques in the field of image processing, thus the details of the same are omitted for the sake of brevity and the present disclosure is not limited to this example. In this embodiment, the processing module 6 may refer to any device or portion of a device that processes electronic data from registers and/or memory to transform that electronic data into other electronic data. For example, the processing module 6 includes, but not limited to, a single core processor, a multi-core processor, a dual-core mobile processor, a microprocessor, a microcontroller, a digital signal processor (DSP), a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a radio-frequency integrated circuit (RFIC) etc.

The display unit 7 is communicatively connected to the processing module 6 for displaying the panoramic image 9 generated by the processing module 6. In this embodiment, the display unit 7 is a monitor for displaying the panoramic image 9.

By this way, an inspector can simply look at the display unit 7 to inspect one upper at a time and to determine whether the rough trace included in the panorama is qualified. For example, the inspector determines whether a depth of the rough trace 31 is not greater or smaller than a predetermined depth and/or a width of the rough trace 31 is not greater or smaller than a predetermined width based on experience.

Note that in other embodiments, the determination of whether the rough trace 31 is qualified can be made by the processing module 6, for example, comparing the rough trace 31 with a reference trace that is predetermined to be a qualified trace, to determine whether the rough trace 31 is qualified, rather than determined by a human inspector. Since the feature of this disclosure does not reside in how the determination is made and such techniques are well known in the art, further details of the same are omitted for the sake of brevity.

Referring to FIG. 6, another embodiment of the roughing system 200 is shown. The main difference between this embodiment and the previous embodiment resides in the following. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 6, the camera module 5 includes a supporting frame 53 configured to track movement of one end of the robotic arm 42 where the grinding wheel 41 is mounted so as to move parallel to the path (L). The camera 52 is co-movably mounted on the supporting frame 53. In one embodiment, the supporting frame 53 is connected co-movably to a robotic arm (not shown) which is driven by, e.g., the processing module 6 to track the movement of said end of the robotic arm 42. In another embodiment, the supporting frame 53 is mounted slidably on a rail (not shown) that is arranged in a loop having a shape substantially the same as the path (L) so as to track the movement of said end of the robotic arm 42 along the path (L).

To sum up, by virtue of the imaging apparatus that generates a panoramic image of a rough trace formed on the upper, the entire rough trace formed on one upper can be inspected at once since there is no need to flip the upper around or to determine whether a rough trace on one upper is qualified from a large number of pictures or video.

In the description above, for the purposes of explanation, numerous specific details have been set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the embodiment(s). It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art, that one or more other embodiments may be practiced without some of these specific details. It should also be appreciated that reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment,” “an embodiment,” an embodiment with an indication of an ordinal number and so forth means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic may be included in the practice of the disclosure. It should be further appreciated that in the description, various features are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure and aiding in the understanding of various inventive aspects, and that one or more features or specific details from one embodiment may be practiced together with one or more features or specific details from another embodiment, where appropriate, in the practice of the disclosure.

While the disclosure has been described in connection with what are considered the exemplary embodiments, it is understood that this disclosure is not limited to the disclosed embodiments but is intended to cover various arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and equivalent arrangements. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A roughing system comprising: a roughing machine configured to rough an upper of a shoe along a path so as to form a rough trace on the upper; and an imaging apparatus including a camera module configured to be moved parallel to the path and to capture an image of a portion of the upper having a segment of the rough trace thereon each time when one of a first condition that said camera module has been moved by a predetermined length and a second condition that said camera module has been moved for a predetermined time duration is satisfied; and a processing module electrically connected to said camera module for receiving the images respectively of different portions of the upper that are sequentially captured by said camera module, and configured to generate a panoramic image based on the images.
 2. The roughing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said camera module is mounted on said roughing machine, and to be moved parallel to the path as said roughing machine roughs the upper along the path.
 3. The roughing system as claimed in claim 2, wherein said roughing machine includes a robotic arm, a grinding wheel co-movably mounted on said robotic arm so that said robotic arm brings said grinding wheel to move along the path, and a motor mounted on said robotic arm for driving said grinding wheel to rotate for roughing the upper to form the rough trace, wherein said camera module includes a supporting frame mounted co-movably on said robotic arm where said grinding wheel is mounted, and a camera for capturing the images and co-movably mounted on said supporting frame.
 4. The roughing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said roughing machine includes a robotic arm, a grinding wheel co-movably mounted on said robotic arm so that said robotic arm brings said grinding wheel to move along the path, and a motor mounted on said robotic arm for driving said grinding wheel to rotate for roughing the upper to form the rough trace, wherein said camera module includes a supporting frame configured to track movement of said robotic arm where said grinding wheel is mounted so as to move parallel to the path, and a camera co-movably mounted on said supporting frame.
 5. The roughing system as claimed in claim 1, wherein said processing module is configured to extract an image portion from each of the images captured by said camera module by performing edge detection on the image, the image portion including the segment of the rough trace, said processing module further configured to combine the image portions respectively extracted from the images to generate the panoramic image.
 6. The roughing system as claimed in claim 5, wherein said processing module is configured to combine the image portions by sequentially stitching the image portions in an order of the images being captured by said image capturing unit to generate the panoramic image.
 7. The roughing system as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a display unit communicatively connected to said processing module for displaying the panoramic image generated by said processing module. 